Joao Carvalho

[Strawberry Avenger]

....to say we effectively played with 10 men when out of possession is an appalling sleight on a player who worked his nuts off closing down opponents.

You may take offence at the wording of that particular statement, but I ask you to read those stats again to see it's not a sleight, but a statement of fact.

Running around "working your nuts off" doesn't actually guarantee that a person's making an impactful contribution, & that's what a football player is paid to do.

Martin could play me next week & I can promise you that I would give 100% & "work my nuts off", but Martin won't play me next week because that's not enough.

I also take offence at the claims of a "hatchet job", I held these stats back to protect the guy & even presented them in what I considered a more sympathetic way for him.

For the record, I loved watching Carvalho play

For the record so do I, which is why I have continuously defended him, but admiring a player, or defending a player doesn't negate the need to look at a bigger picture & we can all see the bigger picture, & the fact that he needs to do a lot of work on his game.

The manager has said it, the pundits have said it, the stats say it & that is why I presented the stats, not as some ridiculous hatchet job, but so that fans who have been throwing toys out of their prams could see it too & understand the process & reasoning.

You're right, with great power comes great responsibility, but even without power there is responsibility, responsibility to be honest, accurate & to help others see the bigger picture.

You're "angry" at me for telling a truth that you don't like, but surely as a fan of this club you have a responsibility too, a responsibility to support the correct decisions, even if that "breaks your heart" sometimes.

This club has sacked friends of mine before, loaned or sold others off to far flung crap holes, & they were real friends, not just people I enjoyed watching, or a Shoot! magazine poster on a bedroom wall & I have had to reconcile myself to those things & learn to look at the bigger picture.

In this case the bigger picture is laid out in the comments you are attacking, it might not be a bigger picture that you like, hence your attack on me, but it's the picture the club has to work with & working with that picture is the only way of redeeming Carvalho's career here.

We can pretend everything I've said isn't true, we can bury our heads in the sand & pretend everything is wonderful, but if the club did that then Carvalho would not learn, not develop & would burn out by Christmas again next season & by the summer after that he would be sold off on the cheap.

This sleight, this hatchet job you see is actually me fighting for the kids career here, just as Martin & Roy working on him in training, rather than playing him every week, is them trying to save his career at Forest, which is the purpose of the stats, so that people can understand that & support it.

NG is on point, here.

SA.